The Accounts of Ruby Zibane: The Heirloom

Chapter 14

*Author's Note* I had to put something up. I was pretty distracted when I wrote most of this so I'll probably revise it later on or something. I'll be editing the entire story when I've completed it. Enjoy, hopefully! X|

Chapter 14

                    “We’re here,” announces Gabriel  as he slows the car down. He parks some distance away from a grand house and we both clamber out of the car simultaneously. He walks swiftly up to the gate that blocks the house and I follow more slowly behind him, gradually putting more weight on my ankle until I can walk a bit steadier.

                    “Damn,” I hear Gabriel mutter. He’s in front of a small keypad attached to a pillar next to the gate. I hear a few beeps and another curse word until I approach him.

                    “What are you doing?” I ask curiously as he punches in more numbers and swears when it isn’t the right combination.

                    “I’m trying to get in but I can’t remember the password!” He slaps the keypad and more numbers enter, all of them incorrect.

                    “You can’t remember the password to your own house?” I ask, very skeptical.

                    He grunts and mumbles, “I stay inside most of the time.”

                    I look thoughtfully at the keypad and ask, “Is the password someone’s birthday?”

                    To my surprise, Gabriel looks at me scornfully. “Of course it isn’t! Every hacker knows that the most obvious password is a birthday.” He punches in some more numbers and slams his fists against the stone pillar, saying every obscenity I’ve ever heard of.

                    “Now what?” I ask as he slouches down to the ground slowly.

                    “We’ve got to wait till someone comes to let us in,” he says grumpily. I don’t respond; instead I walk up to the gate and look through the wrought iron bars. Most of the house is obscured because of the gate, but from what I can see the house is huge, and unkempt. Bottles litter the ground, a stray shoe is floating in a fountain at the front of the house, and there’s a smashed window or two.

                    “Your house is a mess,” I say loudly.

                    “Yeah,” he says, his voice even grumpier, “That’s the price you pay for inviting four hundred people to your birthday party.”

                    “Didn’t I say I was sorry?” 

                    He looks up for a moment and furrows his eyebrows, as if thinking. “No,” he says, “No, you didn’t actually.”

                    “Oh,” I say simply. He isn’t getting a sorry out of me now. He crouches on the ground, his mouth turned down into a frown while I stay standing, still looking through the gate. After a few minutes of looking at his trashed house something small and moving catches my eye. “Hey,” I say, still focusing on the figure. I nudge Gabriel with my foot and he stands up to look through the gate. “There’s a guy right there,” I point out.

                    “A guy where?” he asks. He’s having more difficulty looking through the gate than me.

                    “Right there!” I try again, and this time I get more specific. “Um, he’s trying to get a shoe out of the fountain…”